HOW TO BE AN ADULT
Many adolescents may benefit from training and assistance in skills that have long-term effects on overall health and well-being. The federal legislation enabling the Personal Responsibility Education Program addresses six key adulthood preparation subject (APS) areas closely linked with key social drivers of health in adulthood: family relationships, overall health, financial literacy, parent-child relations, education and career success, and life skills like goal setting. This review evaluated interventions that might strengthen one or two of these areas, although no single intervention evaluated the complete group of interventions for “adulthood preparation” outlined by the federal legislation. Schools have implemented a majority of these interventions, but they miss particularly vulnerable adolescents such as those in foster care, adolescent parents, youths who dropped out of high school, pregnant and parenting adolescents, and low-income youths.
THE COSTS OF MILITARY (SEXUAL) TRAUMA
In 2002, the Veterans Health Administration initiated universal screening for military sexual trauma (MST), which is defined as sexual assault or repeated, threatening sexual harassment occurring during military service. The documentation of MST status in the medical record provides a unique opportunity to examine long-term health care services use (mental health, substance use, social work, emergency services, homeless services, and medical care) and costs as they relate to adult sexual trauma for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. The overall positive screen for MST was 16.2% in women, 0.8% in men. A positive MST screen is associated with a 50% increase in health care visits and costs over a 5-year period; that’s approximately 35 health care encounters and $11,000. These findings add support to the investment in developing potent primary assault and harassment prevention efforts for veterans, particularly women.
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RESCUING FOOD FOR FAMILY HEALTH
The United States throws about 40% of its food away each year, and with it, about $218 billion. Despite this, forty-one million people (1 in 6) experience food insecurity in the United States. If this waste was somehow avoided, we would be able to feed those 41 million people plus about 122 million more.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report in October 2017 that details just what kind of food the United States wastes and how to recover food that would otherwise contribute to a shameful country-wide habit. One major focus of the report was on various city-level sectors such as grocery stores, restaurants, schools, and health care.
As the graph above shows, restaurants might contribute the greatest volume of food waste but have low potential for food rescue as most food is considered “post-consumer.” Grocery stores, on the other hand, could be a major source of usable, donated foods like fruits, vegetables, meat, and other nutritious foods.
The NRDC also surveyed households and found that nearly 70% of all food wasted in homes is edible, but also that 76% of participants in the study believed they “wasted less food than the average American.” Ultimately, the report argues that while household efforts are beneficial, policy changes and community efforts to reduce waste and recover surplus are a much-needed, untapped source of food for people and families in need. —Madeline Bishop, PHP Fellow
"Food Matters, What Food We Waste and How We Can Expand the Amount of Food We Rescue," Natural Resources Defense Council Issue Brief, p. 8
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